So a week ago, BloodworksNW called me and basically begged for me to not to donate whole blood, but to donate platelets. I hadn’t ever done platelets before so it was definitely a new experience.

Took about 85 minutes once the machine was hooked up and it basically takes a cup of whole blood out, centrifuges out the platelets and returns the blood back to you.

It was kind of strange feeling the machine push and pull blood out of your arm.

The platelets look like a bag of liquid fat - I forget what they’re suspended in. Some of the techs did say that you can get a pretty good idea of the donor’s diet by the appearance of the platelets. Hopefully I look like I’m sort of healthy.

Depending on my schedule, I’m hoping to do platelets about twice a month. It’s for a good cause after all.